Today we will discuss about Bitcoin’s solo miners. Do you know, Bitcoin’s hashrate is now at its highest level. Even so, solo miners are still receiving full block rewards. Mainly, efficient ASIC hardware plays a major role behind this.
At the time of writing this article, the price of Bitcoin is now $114,661. The network’s hashrate is now 902 exahash per second. You can clearly understand that this exahash is just below the highest record. And so, it’s clear that mining competition is high now. Therefore, the chances of solo miners winning a block are very low. But last week we saw a different picture.
A solo miner went against the flow and won block 907,283 through the Solo CK pool. Not only that, he received 3.125 Bitcoin as a block reward. Its market value is over $375,000. The surprising thing is he also received $3,436 in transaction fees.
You might say now, “Hey brother, only one person got it. An exceptional win can happen. Not all solo miners are getting this.” But I want to slightly disagree with you and say that this win was not an exceptional one. In early July, another miner received a full block reward with 2.3 petahash. The story doesn’t end there. The same solo miners had block reward wins in February, March, and June as well.
Let’s hear a comment given by ASICKey to Cointelegraph. ASICKey’s Chief Technology Officer Samuel Lee says, What we are seeing with solo miners winning blocks is not just because of luck. Mainly, it happened due to their use of powerful and efficient hardware. He also said modern miners are capable of solving significant hashrate challenges. Therefore, without the huge electricity costs of traditional setups, it is possible to earn large block rewards.
Importance of Efficient Miners
Efficient miners have already proven their success. In mining, efficiency means how to generate hashrate quickly with low electricity cost. Currently, mining companies are constantly competing to reduce their costs and increase efficiency. However, despite advancements in Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) efficiency, the fundamental odds of solo miners winning haven’t changed much. And you’ve already seen proof of that.
Lee also told Cointelegraph that solo mining is still mostly like a lottery unless you have more than a dozen petahashes (PH/s). Which is practically the minimum threshold needed to have a statistical chance of success within a reasonable period.
Lee explained that in today’s Bitcoin network hashrate, a miner with one petahash (PH/s) of hash power has about a 1 in 650,000 chance of solving a block every 10 minutes.
Which Path Are Miners Taking Now?
If you have read the article attentively from the beginning, by now you have understood that miners are walking the solo path. Solo mining seems to be slowly reviving again. But there’s definitely something behind this. Some miners are choosing solo mining for the possibility of big rewards. Especially, the chance of earning 6.25 BTC plus fees has created an opportunity winning which could change a life.
When these financial incentives play a big role, then some people will naturally choose solo mining for ideological reasons. This decision can also come from valuing the freedom to work without centralized mining pools and for network decentralization.
According to data from Hashrate Index, US-based mining pool Foundry USA still dominates Bitcoin mining. They currently control 29.3% of total hashrate. Besides, AntPool is in second place with 16.2%. ViaBTC holds the third place with 12.0% hashrate and F2Pool is in fourth with 11.6% hashrate.
Conclusion
If a pool or a few pools collectively control more than 50% of the hashrate, then they can theoretically launch a 51% attack. This could essentially allow them to double spend the same coin. Although such events are rare and expensive, it can still destroy trust in the network.
